Tuesday, September 24, 2013

[Repost] Perilous Path - thoughts about magic

This post was initially posted on now-defunct Perilous Path blog. As I mentioned it here, I decided to nuke it to keep all my posts and ideas in one place.

As I mentioned before, there will be no strictly "magical" character classes and anyone may be able to learn magic. Contrary to D&D , I don't want to make magic as simple, common and accessible aspect of the game. Here are some basic thoughts about magic in Perilous Path. Note that some of them may be incompatible with each other, mostly because I'm not sure which version should I pick.

Different levels of the same spell / enchantment, similar to ones used in MERP (which was one of my main inspiration in late 90s).

Lots of "natural" magic, such as gems, herbs and body parts of magical beings.

Lots of enchanting, magic requiring components (see above).

Magical Talent stat will be essential for spell effectiveness but Willpower checks will be required to succesfully cast a spell.

Many spells will require appropriate preparations and rituals, so there will be little "instant effect" spells.

Here is an excerpt of the rulebook, covering the Arcane Training for the new characters:

If someone wants his / her character to be trained in using Magic, 3D8+1 years must be added to character’s age. This increases character’s WIL and MAG by d4 points. Also, for each five years of training character gains access to one chosen spell at the ‘Initiate’ level. If character’s training was too short to learn any spells, he / she is still able to use magic (but must acquire some spells during the game).